


Mud, Blood and Driving Rain

by LauramourFromOz



Series: Lest We Forget [5]
Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Gen, Lest We Forget, Remembrance Day, Remembrance Day 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 15:06:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16578857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauramourFromOz/pseuds/LauramourFromOz
Summary: A moment between a Digger and an ANZAC Girl on a train in the rain.





	Mud, Blood and Driving Rain

_There were shots ringing in the air. Mortar fire, bullets. Everything from the uniforms to the bully beef tins and simmering billies was covered in mud and blood. Nobody could remember all the way down that trench carved into the French countryside, what it felt like to be dry, let alone clean. It had been raining for days and the mud and blood from no man’s land had run into the trenches their nostrils were filled with the smell of blood and death. Every so often there would be a charge and there was a fresh layer to the unrelenting stench of death. It was days, weeks, months, years before it let up. There was a never-ending cycle of death._

_It wasn’t just the battle that brought death. It was the cold. The disease. The damp. Every day as many were carried off from the filth and exposure as were from enemy fire. It never ended. The sky was black and bruised, as if in protest to the violence beneath it. The rain was unyielding and everything was the kind of wet that permeated to the bone._

_They went over the wall. They retreated. They went over the wall. They retreated. They ate sodden rations. They went over the wall. They retreated. They went over the wall. They retreated. Every time there were fewer and fewer. They went over the wall. They Retreated. They went over the wall. They retreated. Because some fat cat in London said so. They gained nothing. Neither did the enemy. They went over the wall. They Retreated._

Jack Robinson woke up in a cold sweat on the Adelaide train. A heavy rain had set in since he’d fallen asleep. Kate Southon, his travelling companion and temporary Phryne, was awake across from him. She had the far-of look that he assumed he had and he knew her mind was the same place as his. They shared a look. There was nobody else around, so he assumed he hadn’t shouted in his sleep. The scars on his shoulder and flank ached.

“I don’t sleep too well through this kind of rain anymore. Not this time of year,” Kate said after a moment.

“No, nor do I,” Jack replied.

Mac was asleep against Kate’s side. They both contemplated her for a moment.

“She can sleep anywhere,” Kate supplied after a while, “waked in on her napping on a morgue table the other day. Just about gave me a heart attack.”

The silence stretched.

“Do you ever think…” Kate began.

“All the time.”

“I ran into Alexander Greyson the other day.”

“Oh, how is he?”

“He’s good. He was with someone.”

“Oh?”

“Nice man. Handsome, younger. Name’s Anton.”

“Not Anton Kirkland?”

“Yes, why?”

“He’s a constable at City East, he just put in for a transfer to City South. I was reviewing the file yesterday.”

“And?”

“I don’t know. Good record, good officer. I was going to approve the transfer but now I’m not so sure.”

“Alexander asked after you. They might have decided to put in for the transfer after we spoke in which case, they know it’s you he’ll be working under.”

“It could start to look suspicious if all the homosexual policemen end up I the same precinct.”

“Is it wrong of me to like the idea?”

“Why?”

“Because at least then my people would have somewhere they can go. The Lavender network, it isn’t that big, most of us know each other. If there was somewhere we could go without being ignored… It’s one Constable Jack. If it turns into another, and then another. Until it’s just you, Collins and the Lavender constabulary, so be it.”

Jack looked at his watch, “Midnight. That’s another year.”

 

_Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn._

_At the going down of the sun, and in the morning._

_We will remember them._

_Lest we forget._


End file.
